Letter: No more working poverty; workers demand dignified raises

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Chancellor Subbaswamy,

It is clear that you continue to ensure that graduate workers at the University of Massachusetts must take an “oath of poverty.” The Graduate Employee Organization (GEO), a labor union of graduate student workers here at UMass, has proposed an 18 percent wage increase over the next three years to ensure our members can afford housing in the Valley, support their families and live with dignity and respect.

UMass has yet to provide us with a substantial wage increase proposal which will provide the kind of material changes our members need to make it through grad school. Your economic package for our teachers, researchers and residential staff is offensive, and your priorities for our campus are shameful. As the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported on September 7, 2017, Athletic Director Ryan Bamford’s newest contract ensures that he will receive the following: a base salary raise to $300,000, retention bonuses of $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 and $25,000 over the next four years, a $12,000 car allowance and a $7,500 country club membership.

The news of Bamford’s new contract makes it clear that your rhetoric of social justice, diversity, inclusion and living up to our university’s radical tradition is hollow and self-serving. Unfortunately, this is not surprising given that the exploitative actions of your administration speak louder than your words of supposed solidarity.

Extravagant salaries for administrators, country club memberships and your apparent disregard for our wellbeing signal how out of touch you and your administration are. It shows you value the athletic department more than your students and those who teach them. However, you still have a chance to remedy this situation. Instruct your negotiators to bargain in good faith with GEO and ensure that “oaths of poverty” are no longer the UMass standard. Show us your leadership by honoring the work that we do.

Our members are tired of working long hours for low pay. We will no longer take your abuse and disregard. We demand that you bargain fairly, timely, respectfully and with our dignity in mind. We cannot accept these poverty salaries you are offering our workers; the people that make UMass work deserve the benefits and protections that you give yourself and your athletic director. We demand that you stop undermining working people. The time has come to face the facts. Is UMass an institution for the many or a corporation for the enrichment of an elite few?

We will be rallying on Tuesday, October 31 at noon in front of Whitmore as part of our Halloween Rally for a Dignified Wage. We expect concrete answers from you regarding our salaries on Tuesday.

3 Responses to “Letter: No more working poverty; workers demand dignified raises”

Ed Cutting, Ed D on
October 30th, 2017 1:06 pm

18% — are you folks insane???

You are students, these are intended to be stipends in addition to your FREE education which you aren’t even paying taxes on. (Seriously — graduate tuition paid for by the employer is considered “taxable income” by the IRS.)

There is a finite amount of money for grad stipends and all GEO has accomplished is to take from the poor and give to the rich — thanks to GEO, there are fewer graduate students receiving financial aid (i.e. tuition/fee waivers). This is the true social justice issue.

1. Graduate from high school.
2. Take a job, any job, and bust your butt to excel
3. Never stop improving yourself educationally
4. Don’t have kids until you’re married and in a stable relationship
5. Don’t get into trouble with the law

If you do these five “weird tricks”, you won’t be poor.

But that would require discipline, hard work, persistence, and restraint. All traits that used to be core American values, but now are derided by the Left.

An 18.00% increase? …..Folks, being a graduate student is neither an occupation nor a career. Stop your complaining, complete your education, go out in the world, and stake your claim like the rest of us.